Looking at Machiavelli's "The Qualities of a Prince"

This one goes a bit farther back than the last few. All of the texts previously reviewed are 19th century at the latest, while this one makes itself at home more than 300 years earlier. I take note of this because this is one of many ways that this text is different from the last. The debates on morality, for example, all directed their focus on a general population, while in some cases pausing to take shots at a religious group or two. Here the public doesn't even seem to be an afterthought. I'm aware that it was the Renaissance, but Machiavelli uses quite a range of vocabulary to get his points across, and, quite frankly, the average citizen probably doesn't care about being a prince.

On the topic of morality, previous texts slaved over how and why people act virtuous. Machiavelli, in simple terms, thinks that those are nice to have, but it would be even nicer to just treat everyone poorly while looking like you're being good, since generosity can lead to a downfall. It's almost funny how much of a focus was placed on religion and morality by some of these writers, but when you're a prince, Machiavelli thinks it would be better to play pretend. And if the people at the top of the pyramid are just pretending to be moral and religious, what does that mean for those on the bottom?

"Morality as Anti-Nature" and "Morality and Religion"

Two very interesting texts on the topic of morality are "Morality as Anti-Nature" by Friedrich Nietzsche and "Morality and Religion" by Iris Murdoch. Additionally, while it is not in the title, Nietzsche also has a focus on religion in his text. Nietzsche takes an opportunity to slam religion, even taking a concept universally known by all people of all religious affiliations (love), and calling it "a triumph over Christianity". He then holds up "hostility" as an equal force, saying that, in a nutshell, having enemies is just as important as having friends. In some cases (he uses the Second Reich as an example), enemies are even more important. This is all in one paragraph, and doesn't even touch on Nietzsche's "Four Great Errors", some of which are very interesting when trying to find out his view on religion. At a glance, Nietzsche's strategy in this text largely consists of taking his thoughts and presenting them as a truth without pulling any punches.

Murdoch goes about it a good bit differently, using a good amount of stories and accounts from other people to support her thoughts. Her thoughts, however, are not entirely clear. Nietzsche knows what he thinks and parades it up and down the pages of his texts. Murdoch was a known atheist, but from a glance at this text, you wouldn't be able to know that. She brings up a few good points as to why religion leads to people having morality, and a few of the accounts from other people that she references contains religious people doing good things and being good people. This results in some people misunderstanding the text entirely, which leads me to conclude that Nietzsche had a better direction with his ideas, and even though he himself can be confusing at times, you do know what side he's on.

Thinking About "Toward a Universal Ethics"

Gazzaniga's "Toward a Universal Ethics" is kind of like a different flavor of ethics essay (a Baskin-Robbins flavor perhaps) when compared to Appiah's "The Case Against Character. Appiah brought up scenarios that went something like "Would you help someone get change for a dollar? What if it smelled nice?", while Gazzaniga went straight for the jugular by going right into life or death situations. One of his exact scenarios was "...a trolley is headed down a track, straight for five people. You have to decide whether to hit the five people or, up close and personal, throw a person standing next to you onto the tracks to stop the trolley from hitting the other five." This made me come to the conclusion that Appiah was asking when and where you would do something, but Gazzaniga just wants to know the why and how. If a trolley is about to kill five people, the smell in the air suddenly become irrelevant, and I thing that's pretty interesting. Gazzaniga brings up couple more scenarios after this. There is one where a man is bloody and dying on the side of the road but rescuing him would make your new car dirty. Most people would take him regardless of this, and I don't think anybody would consider differently if the ambient noise level was 20 dB higher than the norm (another example Appiah brought up for situationists). However, a third of Gazzaniga's scenarios states that you get something in the mail telling you to send back money to save lives. This is where I think situationism finally plays a bit more of a role. If you're having a bad day you throw the mail out, and if you just won the lottery you save yourself some kids. So from this I've concluded that the background of a situation matters less the more interactive a situation is. There's a pretty severe difference between breaking a 20 and putting a bloody man into your car with the intention of saving his life, and that seems like where a line could be drawn.

Checking out "The Case Against Character" by Kwame Anthony Appiah

The subject of what really makes a person virtuous and if it is even possible for one to be certainly makes for an interesting topic. However, I was personally more intrigued by the author's references to the culture of today. Examples of this are when he says virtue ethics come in a "Baskin-Robbins array of flavors", and even making reference to a Happy Meal at one point. This is interesting because I can't say I expected to see Baskin-Robbins and eudaimonia in the same place. It's definitely written in the correct time period, and I knew this from the notes in the book before Appiah's actual writing, but it still caught me off guard.

Now this prompts me to think about what the audience was for this particular piece of writing. A group of seasoned philosophers couldn't care less about Happy Meals, and this piece obviously goes over the heads of most children, who are the primary consumers of the fast food and ice cream in question. This leads me to believe that this was, at least in a small way, directed towards an average Joe. I don't consider myself, for example, to be an expert in language, and was able to understand most of the terminology and concepts used in this piece of writing without much difficulty. Well, working off of this new assumption, did Appiah write this just to encourage people to be nice? Or rather, to think more about virtuous deeds and the purpose of man in general? Well, next time I have to break a 20 next to a pleasant smelling bakery, this will probably be on my mind in some way.

Notes on "Notes on the Balinese Cockfight"

The Balinese system for cockfights runs much deeper than I ever imagined. The concept of cockfights representing the struggles of men itself came of as a bit exaggerated to me before I read the passage, but that opinion of mine was quick to take a turn in the other direction. It is clear the cockfighting is a discourse community, broken up into an insane amount of smaller communities, which branch apart themselves. It reminds me quite a lot of professional sports in that regard.

People are fans of sports teams, with myself being a fan of the New York Jets. I am also a huge fan of what can be called "every team except the Patriots". The Patriots are a divisional rival to the Jets, and a much more successful team without a doubt. This does relate to the topic of cockfighting in a way, to me at least. To clear things up with an example, when the Jets play the Ravens, I'm rooting hard against the Ravens, but when the Ravens played the Patriots in last year's AFC Championship, I'm even more passionate than I am in games involving my own team, but this time pulling for the Ravens harder than ever, because more is on the line.

I think It's like this when outsiders come in to the village in Bali with their cocks. Bitter village rivals set it all aside to cheer on the home team. Although my example cannot be applied exactly as the Jets and Patriots are in the same division, it's the same feeling. Two sides who would vehemently oppose each other on any other day cheer for the same common cause.  In my example there's just less chickens with steel blades attached to them and/or police breaking up games with machine guns.

Log 1: Concept of Discourse Community

Justin Miller
Billy Middleton
29 August 2013

The main thing the passage "The Concept of Discourse Community" got me thinking about was other examples of a discourse community. Being a fan of sports, I started thinking of if a football team would count as one. Thinking about it a bit, a team has its own goals, lexicon, membership criterion, and way of communicating. So a team like that seems to fit the bill to some degree.

This led me to think deeper. How about internet communities? What if a group of people went on the same message board or chat room long enough to develop their own abbreviations and added meaning to words? How about the very first characteristic? "A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of public goals." (5) The goals of most internet communities seem, at first glance, to just be hanging out, chatting, and playing video games. So the main thought I have about all this is just how specific the criterion is for discourse communities.